Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by wishing one of our Hansard publishers here in the House tonight, Sally, a very happy birthday.

I ask the minister to update the chamber on the Turnbull government's announcement to support the community legal sector by providing an additional $55 million in funding over the next three years. Mine is a capital city seat, so I have a fair number of community legal centres around Brisbane and they provide an important role in giving access to legal advice and ultimately justice for many people, particularly vulnerable people. The community legal centres around Brisbane include the Women's Legal Service, the Youth Advocacy Centre, Basic Rights Queensland, the LGBTI Legal Service, the Brisbane Family Law Centre in Albion, the Legal Advisory Service in Fortitude Valley, North Brisbane Legal Services, Caxton Legal Centre and many more. I went through that list because you will be able to see from some of the names on that list that there are some strong areas of specialist support provided by those community legal centres around Brisbane—for example, for women, families and other vulnerable groups. I note that because I understand that the new money, the additional $55 million of support for the community legal centres is intended to prioritise victims of domestic and family violence. It is for front-line services and it will be delivered via state governments, of course. It is proudly being provided by the Turnbull government on top its other historic commitments to protect Australians from violence. Notably, there is the $100 million Women's Safety Package and the $100 million Third Action Plan.

I want to note how many community legal centres from the list above would have a client list that either directly or incidentally supports the victims of domestic or family violence. On the weekend, I visited the Brisbane Trans Fair Day at the New Farm Neighbourhood Centre. I spoke with the LGBTI Legal Service there and I also spoke to the crowd at the official opening of the fair. I mentioned this extra funding for the community legal centres, and I spoke about the need to start to raise awareness and actually deal with the long hidden problem of domestic and family violence within the LGBTIQ community. After I spoke, a couple of people came up to me and told me quietly and matter-of-factly about how domestic violence was a big issue in the LGBTI community and how they had suffered personally as a result of it. So I hope that the LGBTI Legal Service can benefit from the extra funding being committed to community legal centres by the Turnbull government. I hope that the Women's Legal Service and many of the other community legal centres I listed from across Brisbane can benefit as well. I note that for a few months there was some nervousness from some community legal centres and their supporters about whether the level of funding from the Commonwealth would continue to increase. These are tight fiscal times after all, and not all worthy causes and government agencies are being funded or getting funding increases. I suspect the minister may well want to touch on that topic, given that these extra funding commitments of $55 million that I am asking about will actually mean that the Turnbull government is delivering record funding, compared to every former government, to the community legal centres. It is important to note also—the minister may choose to expand on this—that the states and territories do remain the principal funders of legal assistance in Australia, given most of the court proceedings in Australia are conducted in state and territory courts and under state and territory laws. Lastly, I hope that the minister may expand on where specifically some of the $55 million of additional funding may be directed, given the government's stated preference and intention for the extra assistance to be received by the victims of domestic and family violence.

Further on the subject of law and order, I would like to ask a second question of the minister, that he update the chamber on how the government's Safer Communities Fund is improving community safety and supporting crime prevention in areas in my electorate like the Brisbane CBD and Fortitude Valley. The minister will recall I am sure visiting me on the campaign trail to discuss projects to help improve community safety and to boost crime prevention measures in Brisbane. The projects that I committed to under the Safer Communities Fund are intended to help local businesses, venues, shops, councils and other stakeholders more easily report and share information about crimes with the police, as well as to respond more quickly to incidents and even to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place. It is all about utilising the great investments that many local businesses, venues and the council have already made in things like CCTV, ID scanning and other crime preventions, and about maximising the benefits of those investments by making sure that the benefit of all that information flows to the police and everyone else who can use it. The safer communities program is extremely important to Brisbane, as the minister may also talk to, because the increased attention on crime prevention will lead to more jobs. (Time expired)

See this speech in context